


make it so divine.

by mihkrokosmos



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Rated T for language, actually they’re caught lowkey fucking so it’s not that implied, gays r fucking dumb and by gays i mean chanyeol, i don’t know, i wrote this in like an hour listening to the wombats, implied side seho, lapslock bc i’m bi, lowkey though - Freeform, sehun is mentioned an awful lot, this reads like a lucid dream, uhh, unedited, what’s going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 02:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihkrokosmos/pseuds/mihkrokosmos
Summary: they don’t know each other. he doesn’t think they do, at least.he could be wrong.(the red flags look a lot like the sequins on baekhyun’s ripped jeans. he’s been smoking — chanyeol can smell it on him — or he’s been around someone else who smokes. none of this matters, he decides, when baekhyun has wrapped fine-boned fingers around his wrist and is tugging insistently).





	make it so divine.

**Author's Note:**

> fair warning this. feels like a vivid dream so if u wanna read it like that b my Guest. also listen to turn by the wombats for peak Vibessss or. whatever. 
> 
> title comes from a lorde song don’t ask me which one i can’t actually remember it’s from pure heroine tho,, ribs maybe ?

they don’t know each other. he doesn’t think they do, at least. he could be wrong. he usually is. even so, they are no more than acquaintances — a friendly face when you don’t know anybody else at a party, or when you need to partner up with someone and everyone else has already made a decision (and they don’t include you, because who would) and it’s… a strange relationship to have with someone. knowing them without knowing them. recognising them without seeing them.

chanyeol looks away first. 

he doesn’t fit in here, lanky limbs stuffed into skinny jeans and a band t-shirt like he knows what the fuck he’s doing. spoiler alert: he doesn’t. it isn’t like he doesn’t _ want _to be here, because he does — he needs the comfort of alcohol and the safety in numbers more than anyone — he just… isn’t sure how he ended up in such a place.

it’s less like a party and more like a cult gathering. there’s alcohol on the floor, mixed with god knows what else and the blood from a fistfight earlier. the lights are hypnotic, swirling around in an indecipherable mess and leaving him with a headache and even more confusion. chanyeol can’t remember the host. taemin, probably. it’s usually him. does it matter, when the guts of his identity are strewn across the ground and he can’t even remember what he was thinking about?

his back meets the wall, dull ache caressing his shoulder blades and sending a shudder down his spine. dark eyes meet bright blue — _ contact lenses _, he realises — and his mouth opens but it isn’t him who speaks.

“park chanyeol,” the small figure declares, not a question and not a statement, “hi. i’m byun baekhyun. let’s leave.”

the red flags look a lot like the sequins on baekhyun’s ripped jeans. he’s been smoking — chanyeol can smell it on him — or he’s been around someone else who smokes. none of this matters, he decides, when baekhyun has wrapped fine-boned fingers around his wrist and is tugging insistently. chanyeol might regret leaving. might. he came here with someone, (some_ ones _. sehun had hauled junmyeon along). these are things he will think about tomorrow, when red sequins and blue eyes aren’t clouding his vision.

“okay,” he agrees, stumbling after the student, bumping into more people than he cares to recall, “where- where are we going?”

baekhyun tosses red hair out of his eyes, dark eyeliner cutting through chanyeol’s coherency like a knife. his lips are pursed, like he’s about to reveal a secret in the middle of this overcrowded college party. the result of his deliberation is a simple shrug. 

“away,” is all he says.

it doesn’t make sense but chanyeol just offers him an awkward smile. baekhyun falters, just for a second, but then his grip tightens like a vice and he gives chanyeol a barbed wire grin in return.

  
  


the cold air slices into chanyeol’s lungs. out spills his remaining inhibition, rendering him victim to baekhyun’s whims. they still don’t know each other. baekhyun isn’t as clear-headed as he thinks he is, chanyeol isn’t as drunk as he seems. they’re moviescreen strangers, addicted to the thrill of doing something different from what everyone else is doing. pretentious and rebellious in the strangest ways.

they don’t talk about themselves, but they chatter nonstop about everything around them. the world is batshit crazy, they both agree, and reality is a simulation meant to drive everyone to the brink. it doesn’t dampen the mood. how could it, when they’re laughing hysterically at vodka daydreams and cocktail concepts?

something brings them to the rooftop of the library building. the inherent danger, maybe, or just boredom. the breeze is harsh against their backs, threatening to send them headfirst into the asphalt below. they don’t care. baekhyun stretches his arms out, an intoxicated icarus. chanyeol can only laugh, pulling at the other’s shirt until they’re face to face on the concrete roof. 

“do you know who i am?” baekhyun asks, delicate hands clutching at chanyeol’s broad shoulders.

they’re close, impossibly so, and this doesn’t register in chanyeol’s head until he opens his mouth to reply.

“you said you were byun baekhyun,” he remembers, lifting one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug.

“did you know me before that?” baekhyun presses on, blue eyes urgent and demanding, laced with an emotion chanyeol has never seen and never wanted to see. he feels a little ill.

“no,” he answers, honest to a fault, “i’ve never heard of you before.” 

baekhyun stills — chanyeol hadn’t even noticed the nervous fidgeting until it stopped — and a slow smile stretches across cherry-glossed lips.

“who do you think i am?”

the words jump into chanyeol’s mind and tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. he doesn’t even know if they make sense, but nothing really makes sense and he’s lying on a rooftop with a guy he’s never met and he ditched a party he asked to go to so… whatever.

“i think you’re fucking mad,” he whispers, “i think you’re the most stunning person i’ve ever seen. i think you’re going to kill me. i think you’re wonderful. i think i want to learn about who you are. i think you don’t know enough about yourself to tell me. i think you might not be entirely human.”

when he stops to breathe, baekhyun is laughing. his eyes are scrunched up in an almost innocent grin at chanyeol’s general social incompetence.

“i’m human,” baekhyun confirms, “i hope i am, anyway.”

chanyeol would have nodded, except baekhyun’s lips are on his and, _ oh _ , they taste more like raspberry than cherry and they’re more chapped than chanyeol expected but none of that is important because baekhyun is _ kissing _him. it’s more chaste than chanyeol’s other kisses, but his other kisses were drunken hookups, so they probably weren’t a good comparative.

“are _ you _human, chanyeol?” baekhyun asks when he breaks away, gloss smeared and eyes bright.

chanyeol opens his mouth to answer and nothing comes out. the only sound on the roof is baekhyun’s gentle laugh. all chanyeol knows is the drag of concrete against his shirt, the dance of baekhyun’s touch against his skin. he could die like this and he wouldn’t care, wrapped up in the arms of a stranger who he knows nothing about; a stranger who knows nothing about him.

“why did you choose me?” chanyeol wonders when they break apart, brows furrowed. there is nothing spectacular about him, nothing to attract baekhyun, “why are you still here?”

“i like the way your brain works.”

  
  


the only reminder chanyeol has of the party is lip gloss stains across his jeans and a pain in his thighs. if he closes his eyes, he can see ice blue contacts and pouting lips. he wonders, would he remember the other if he had been more sober? or was everything just a drugged up dream?

nobody talks about his sudden exit from the party, most chalking it up to feeling sick or being bored. by ‘most’, chanyeol refers to the people who cared enough to notice his absence. not a huge amount. sehun, for one, was caught in taemin’s room with junmyeon’s lips attached to his neck, so there’s something to be said about concerned friends.

his phone is clogged up with missed calls from a number he doesn’t recognise. when he tries to call back, he’s met with a recorded message, the voice familiar but not familiar enough to break through chanyeol’s memories. maybe that’s for the best. trying to recall the night before is like staring at the sun. the second he begins to make out a shape, his eyes burn and he’s forced to shut them and give up.

something settles in his chest, something that feels a lot like resignation. he’s missing something, missing the feeling, but he _ doesn’t fucking know _. chanyeol tips his head back, black curls tossed out across a white pillow.

all he knows is the taste of raspberry and feeling like he’s been turned inside out.

  
  


“hey,” someone taps his shoulder and chanyeol turns around, question on the tip of his tongue. the person is already talking, though, encouraged by chanyeol’s pause, “could you direct me to the library?”

the person has dark brown eyes, filled with curiosity, and a shock of red hair pinned away from his face with raspberry clips.

“sure,” chanyeol nods. he doesn’t have anything else to do, at the moment, and he should probably go to the library to work on that paper… “what’s your name?”

“byun baekhyun,” the red-head grins, “why? do you know me?”

chanyeol stops, just for a moment, before shaking his head with a sheepish smile.

“uh… no, sorry,” he mumbles, watching baekhyun’s grin fade away into something like disappointment, “but, um, i’m park chanyeol.”

baekhyun’s lips are pursed into a thin line, like he wants to yell or cry or _ something _. he doesn’t do any of these things, just shoves his hands into his pockets and lets his bracelets click together against his wrist.

“i know,” baekhyun hums, faking nonchalance the way chanyeol fakes his surprise, “sorry, that was rude. lead the way, park chanyeol.”

chanyeol’s legs start working before his brain does. a good thing, probably, because he would’ve said something stupid like ‘i like the way your brain works’. he doesn’t have a clue where a thought like that came from, but it’s fine because the words never make it out.

  
  


baekhyun likes to show up at random times, chanyeol discovers. he’s not in any of chanyeol’s classes, not in any of chanyeol’s social circles — or chanyeol’s friend’s social circles, which cover a much wider range — and chanyeol doesn’t even have a number. the number which clogged up his phone after the party is unreachable, yet chanyeol still tries it every so often. out of intrigue, more than anything.

chanyeol will think he sees him out of the corner of his eye, sometimes, but the flash of red hair is always gone before his vision focuses. 

the point is, if baekhyun hadn’t been standing in front of him, chanyeol would have full reason to believe his existence was a lie. a fanciful image conjured up by his overactive imagination.

“hi,” chanyeol says.

“hi, yourself,” baekhyun replies. he’s careful tonight, solo cup filled with diet coke instead of whatever poison taemin decided to pour into the punch bowl.

“you’re byun baekhyun,” chanyeol continues gaze fixed on baekhyun like he’ll vanish if he looks away. for all he knows, he might.

something burns behind baekhyun’s eyes. determination, maybe, or anger. or, chanyeol guesses, _ very _intense surprise.

“you’re park chanyeol,” baekhyun counters, eyebrows raised as if he’s a character in a choices game and he’s daring chanyeol to fuck this up and burn the scene to the ground.

“leave with me,” chanyeol all-but-demands, reaching out a hand to intertwine their fingers. he’s sober, hasn’t got a fucking clue what he’s doing, but this feels right and he hasn’t got much to lose in terms of reputation if baekhyun decides he’s a loser.

baekhyun just throws his head back in an exhilarated laugh, the sound muted by the chaotic party but echoing loud in chanyeol’s ears. it sounded like a dream, it felt like damnation. chanyeol could listen to it forever.

“oh, and where are we going?”

“away,” the taller decides, unyielding.

“i like the way your brain works, park chanyeol.”

_ this _— whatever it is, a fever dream, a hallucination — feels right. maybe it’s the crazy, maybe it’s the bullshit, but chanyeol would be wrong to let someone like baekhyun pass by. he doesn’t care about baekhyun’s inconsistency, about nights he can’t remember, about days he wastes with regret. he can live with all of these things. he wonders if he could live without baekhyun. 

(he stares, unabashed, at the boy who has taken control and is pulling him away from the mayhem and out into the chilly night.

maybe, when he’s older, he’ll decide that he can. 

right now, he definitely cannot).

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: gayleeknow  
i don’t rly know either but let’s go gang


End file.
